


A Few of Our Favorite Things

by thejollymisandrist



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, The Sound of Music - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 11:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5624578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejollymisandrist/pseuds/thejollymisandrist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mysterious British exile Captain Laurence needs a governess to teach his seven strong-willed children in his Austrian manor. The nuns of Nonnberg Abbey agree Tenzing Tharkay is the perfect candidate. The children, obviously, are up to something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Few of Our Favorite Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [copacetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/copacetic/gifts).



> Yes, thanks to @copacetic and their visionary thinking, this is a Temeraire Sound of Music AU. It is not a full retelling of this rich narrative universe, nor does it stick to it beat to beat. Instead, it is a window into what might happen to Laurence's entire brood if they were children in the Austrian Alps, but otherwise entirely the same. I hope to someday give it the full 50k words it deserves, but this is what it is right now.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. … Tharkay? But, well, when I wrote the abbey, I requested they send me, well, a governess. And you… do not seem to be one.”

Tenzing Tharkay shifted on the hard leather seat facing Captain Laurence’s library desk. He kept his back straight and willed sincere concern across his face instead of the dry mirth he felt building in his chest. The stiff cut of his somber Western-style suit was a constant reminder of the deception he was engaged in.

“I prefer to be called a tutor, yes, rather than a governess.” The Captain looked impatient beneath his veneer of civility, so Tharkay reached for the letter in his jacket pocket. “I understand this may be surprising for you, Captain, and I do apologize for any miscommunication coming from I or Abottess Jane. It was thought, that, since your eldest child is a young man of apparently quite remarkable intellect, you were in need of a complete tutor who could instruct in history, the sciences, and languages. Which I am.” Captain Laurence continued to exude skepticism. “This letter from the Abbottess makes full note of my experience and qualifications.”

Tharkay passed the letter across the expansive oak table and sat back as Captain Laurence broke the seal and began to read. With the full force of the Captain’s scrutiny no longer upon him, he took a moment to closely consider the aspect of the man and was surprised at how at-odds he was with the atmosphere of his manor. Laurence was tall and rangy - the lines of his face showed aristocratic breeding, but his wheat-colored hair in its plain coif and the salt-hardened texture of his skin were more in the style of a common sailor. The house, on the other hand, though respectable when viewed from across its Alpine valley, was gaudy and frivolous in a way that no ancestral home would be - an inundation of gilt and brocade and novelty items in baffling displays throughout the parts of the house he had visited. As a sometimes resident of the Abbey that lay only a few miles away, Tharkay of course knew that the Captain and his odd collection of adopted children had arrived in the valley with no warning less than three years prior, and began renovation on the long-abandoned summer home of a third-tier Austrian noble family. He had watched the place transform over the years, but had never seen the interior, nor its new owner. The expanse between the stoic Englishman and his bizarre decor, which he seemed oblivious of, was something that certainly spurred his curiosity. 

Captain Laurence’s gaze was upon him again. He held the letter in his left hand and drummed it on the tabletop in a broken military beat. “Mr. Tharkay, your qualifications are admirable and your long association with the abbey is beyond reproach. I value highly the opinion of the Abottess. However, I worry about the propriety of you taking charge of my… Well, in addition, you are aware that some of my children are quite young?”

“I can teach a child to tie their own shoe just as well as I instruct Latin and dancing, I assure you, Sir,” said Tharkay, smiling blandly.  

Tharkay watched as Laurence’s eyes flicked from his face to his thick black hair and then to the teak skin of his folded hands. “Ah, those are masculine duties in the culture of your home country, I suppose? Or…?”

Tharkay said nothing. 

A pause stretched out for several seconds, then Captain Laurence forged on. “Pardon my hesitance, Mr. Tharkay. It’s simply been difficult to keep a governess here at the manor. It’s the mountain air, the isolation, seven children. Make no mistake - they are fine children, very orderly. However, they seem quite overwhelmed. We’ve lost three governesses in the past six months, actually.”

Tharkay shifted forward, leaned in towards Laurence slightly. “Maybe a governess is not what your children need then, Captain.” He sat back up and said, “Give me two weeks, before drawing any conclusions, Sir,” weighing each word with confidence, likes stones being dropped.

Another long pause. They stared at each other until some shift towards satisfaction occurred across Laurence’s face and he rose. Tharkay followed, and became suddenly aware of the full half-head difference between their heights. Laurence was also unusually broad of shoulder, and he was glad for the expansive table between them that allowed him to maintain his self-assured stance and not look tilt his head upwards too much. 

“Very well, I look forward to seeing your skills in practice, Mr. Tharkay.” They shook hands like gentlemen and a layer of tension fell from Tenzing Tharkay’s shoulders.

  
  


The letter was authentic, as were his academic qualifications, though he had never tutored children before. But his purposes for entering Captain Laurence’s home were not so transparent. Tenzing had no personal argument with the Captain; in fact, he found him handsome and probably quite sensible for being skeptical of this strange scheme. No, Tenzing worked for the abbey this time, and for the fearsome Abbotess who had taken him in as a gawky lad after his ill-considered voyage from Nepal to meet his father, a lesser lord from the region who had not been pleased by the arrival of his irrevocably-foreign bastard son. Abbotess Jane had never had much interest in the sordid machinations of the Austrian Court, but Napoleon’s threat was something different. Strategically positioned as it was in the pass that connected Austria to Munich, the dear Sisters of Nonnberg did not have the luxury to hold back and think sweetly only of God. The Abbotess had a long eye for strategy and many allies who opposed the self-appointed Emperor. Tenzing Tharkay, with his nimble fingers and quiet diplomacy, was her outside agent in many of these matters. 

Captain William Laurence was a cause for concern for reasons beyond his bachelorhood and seven adopted children from three different continents. His arrival in Austria two and a half years before was predicated by shadowy business within the British Royal Navy, which led either to his early retirement or his banishment, depending on the telling. He was polite and spoke admirable German, but never expressed an opinion on the war and, in fact, had increasingly taken to living in seclusion as the war progressed. No matter how retiring he was, having a mysterious and possibly traitorous Englishman in their midsts had never sat well with the allies of Nonnberg Abbey. So, people had noticed when shipments of steel, specialized wood, canvas, and mechanical parts began arriving regularly at the manor. Quotidian acts of espionage, such as asking the servants and poking around the grounds at night, led nowhere. The supplies seemed to be entirely consumed by the house, with no product emerging. After six months of frustrated inquiry, and the night-time arrival, in three horse-drawn carts, of a sophisticated Turkish forge, the Abottess deemed it a situation fit for Tharkay to investigate. He had been summoned from his previous job in Germany, strings had been pulled, hints had been dropped, and here Tharkay was, following a strangely-steady eccentric through the halls of his truly eccentric house to meet the seven children upon whose good graces his entire mission rested. 

 

Captain Laurence had made very competent small talk as he led Tharkay from the library to another wing of the house on the second floor. He had inquired after the health of the Abottess and the pleasantness of Tharkay’s journey to the manor, and had mentioned the unseasonably cool summer and his desire that the winter snows would not come too heavily again this year. They were comments he could respond to with no need for guardedness and it had lulled Tharkay into a sense that perhaps this man wasn’t so odd after all. And the way his calves and thighs strained at the fabric of his britches when he hoofed vigorously up stairs was a distraction that led his mind far from espionage. So he nearly jumped when, upon entering a sitting room decorated outrageously with an over-abundance of Chinese tapestries and furniture, Laurence produced a long brass captain’s whistle from his waistcoat pocket and blew three sharp tones upon it. He then pocketed the whistle and turned to Tharkay with a small proud smile and said,

“The children will be here momentarily. I hope they meet with your approval.”

Tharkay simply stared at him, at a loss for words, and was grateful when the shuffle of feet in the hall broke the silence a few moments later. Into the room filed seven youths in a precise military line. They came in from eldest to youngest, and were led by a striking lad, perhaps sixteen, who already stood taller than his adopted father. Quite to Tharkay’s shock, he had the look of Chinese nobility, not at all the features one would expect for an orphan picked up by an eccentric sea captain. His skin was a lighter shade than Tharkay’s own, and his brow, nose and chin were all cut with purpose. His eye showed sharp intelligence, but his expression was open, and Tharkay quite obviously saw the youth’s shock at his ethnicity, followed by curious appraisal. The children turned precisely to face Captain Laurence and said as one,

“Good day, Captain, Sir!”

Captain Laurence rocked on his heels a moment, then stepped forward and gestured toward the assembled group.

“Mr. Tharkay, these are my seven children. Children, this is Mr. Tharkay, who will be starting as your new gov… tutor tomorrow. Please introduce yourselves,” he said, motioning the eldest forward.

“I am Temeraire, age sixteen,” said the beguiling youth with the features of an emperor. His voice was surprisingly deep and un-accented.

The next stepped forward, a mawkish youth with red hair and hands clasped nervously behind his back. “My name is John and I’m fifteen. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tharkay.” 

A girl stepped forward next, boots making decisive clicks across the floor. “Iskierka. Pronounced Iz-kier-ka. I’m fifteen too and actually two weeks older than John, just not as tall.” This was true, but she was strongly built for a young lady, with hair that jutted out in rough curls around her head and dark-lashed eyes and a complexion that seemed to suggest some sort of Arabian origin. She stared intently at Tharkay a moment too long, until the boy next to her step forward and elbowed her back. 

This one was as British-looking as the Captain, and wore a cap. “I’m Roland, Sir. Please to meet you. I’m thirteen.”

Captain Laurence coughed strongly and looked about to say something, but the next child stepped quickly forward and began before he had a chance to speak.

“Sir. My name is Demane, I’m twelve.” Dark, with recent South African origin written in his accent, and wiry. His expression hinted he was the type to fight anyone, no matter their size.

Next to him was his brother, cherubic in aspect compared to Demane’s sharp jaw and glare. “I’m Sipho. I’m eight.”

The youngest was vibrating with impatience by the time Tharkay turned to him. A wisp of a child, with eyes sunken in his face that suggested malnutrition or long illness. Both his hair and skin were an odd dusty grayish-brown, and Tharkay leaned down towards him, expecting his voice to be slight. Therefore, he startled back when the child bellowed, “KULINGILE. DO YOU HAVE FOOD?”

Laurence chuckled absent-mindedly. “Yes, that’s Kulingile. He is five and spends most of his day with the nursemaid, though I am told he likes to tag along with the others as much as he can, so keep an eye out for him.” 

Tharkay knelt down to Kulingile's level. “A pleasure to meet you, Kulingile. I have no food on my person, but will certainly endeavor to find some to share with you soon.” He stood again, remembered to brush the knees on his suit. “I’m looking forward to learning more about all of you. From what I have heard, you all are remarkable young minds. I thank your… Captain Laurence for giving me freedom with your course of study and would like to illicit your input as to what areas of academics are most interesting to each of you.” Tharkay looked quickly to Laurence, and, seeing approval, continued. “Consider the issue today, and come prepared tomorrow morning at 8am. We shall be sure to make up the lost time you have suffered due to such frequent changes of teachers.” 

“Very kind, Mr. Tharkay. Children, you are dismissed.” 

They filed silently out of the room, and Laurence turned to address Tharkay. Tharkay’s gaze however was stuck on the tall Chinese boy, who turned to look at him with golden eyes even as he was walking through the door. The Captain noticed, and when the door was closed said wistfully, “Isn’t it always so surprising how they grow up?”

“What is his story?” asked Tharkay.

Laurence laughed with a quiet huff. “Temeraire is the one that started this whole thing. I found him on a ship I seized headed for Napolean’s court, back… years ago. Laid down with Chinese weapons and merchantry and a little boy who refused to tell anyone where he was from and developed a strange attachment to me. He worked as a cabin boy, then captain’s assistant, up until the point I was, well, retired.”

The hesitance and odd wording of the last phrase did not escape Tharkay’s ears. 

“It was due to Temeraire’s impetus that the other children were acquired as we traveled with the Navy. I must warn you, he’s quite protective of them.” 

Tharkay smiled quietly to hear the confirmation of his hunch.

“Well, they are all quite fine children…”

“So it seems, Captain.”

Laurence stared down at him for a moment, a slight frown across his face.

“I have business to attend to this afternoon. Shall I call the housekeeper and leave you to arrange your quarters?”

“That will do quite nicely,” replied Tharkay, and Laurence made a quick motion to the servant, who left the room immediately. 

They were alone then, which Tharkay felt acutely, unaccustomed as he was to places where servants watched his every move. He took a few steps out into the room, stopping before a blue and golden robe hung upon the wall, embroidered with dragons. He was about to comment on it, when Laurence spoke out suddenly, “I… Could I inquire as to your parentage, Mr. Tharkay?”

“My mother is Nepalese and my father was a gentleman with holdings near Innsbruck. I assure you, my parentage does not affect my ability to teach your children in the ways of  _ civilization _ ,” said Tharkay, unsurprised at the question, but still bitter for it.

“No!” exclaimed Laurence, dismay clear in his voice. “No, I mean, I have traveled extensively at sea, but have always wished to visit the more extreme landlocked parts of this world. Especially the mountains of your homeland. They - very high places - are a source of captivation for me.That is, I mean, if you consider it your homeland. Your manners and dress are excellent, far more proper than my own, I was not questioning you on that front, at all.” Laurence’s words stumbled to a halt. “I’m sorry to have been so forward. It must not be a pleasant question to receive.”

Tharkay turned then towards Laurence, startled by the apology. The gentle humanity in Laurence’s expression was another startlement, and it prompted him to open his mouth and spill out the things he never expressed - the wonders of his mountainous land, how the cold winters of his childhood bloomed with warmth when compared with the coldness he faced from people here…

Then the housekeeper bustled in, and two servants fumbled his luggage loudly in the hall. And so he bowed, thanked the Captain once more, and left.   

 

Tharkay found the rooms he had been given were remarkably suited to his tastes. There was no over-abundance of bizarre ornamentation, only cream-colored wallpaper, large windows and the necessary furniture, sturdily made from fine local pine. The rooms consisted of a sitting room, a bedroom and a private bath. They were larger than he was accustomed to, but not uncomfortably so. The prize point of the suite was a balcony off the bedroom - from its vantage the valley, the rolling hills, and the Alps burst to life in vibrant color before him. A desire to sing out surged within him, but he did not. The songs of his mountains had no fit here, and he had no desire to learn to yodel. 

He opened the curtains wide though, and kept glancing out as he sorted his luggage, which was little more than clothes and his library. Only minutes into his his task, Tensing heard a scuffle of feet from out in the hallway. He knew his hearing was far better than most civilians’, so he waited and pretended not to notice. Moments later, another noise - this time a metallic click and the swish of rope coming from outside, directly above the balcony. The sounds of nearly silent maneuvering painted a clear enough picture of what was happening on the roof above him, and Tharkay loosened his waistcoat buttons in a way that would grant him better access to his knife. He backed up to the wall and began gliding towards the balcony doors when suddenly the noises stopped. He focused upward and the air above the the balcony sounded  _ tense;  _ silence punctuated by irate huffs of breath and fabric rustles that gave Tharkay the impression of jostling, rather than any sort of professional attack. He kept his hand near his knife, but did not draw it, and poked his head through the curtain to look up. 

There, ten feet above his head, were Temeraire and the fiery girl, Iskierka, fighting in mid-air. They both wore leather harnesses that hooked them to ropes coming from the roof above, and Temeraire’s feet were planted so he stood horizontally on the wall. In his hand, stretched out as far from Iskierka as possible, was a wooden instrument that looked much like a crooked spyglass; a periscope, Tharkay supposed. Iskierka, her face a mask of silent rage, bounced freely on her rope, clawing her way over Temeraire and out toward the object he was obviously trying to keep away from her. Her hair was all over - Temeraire was frantically spitting it out of his mouth and trying to brush it from his eyes while still holding her back. The picture was so ridiculous, Tharkay couldn’t help himself. He laughed. 

Several things happened the instant after. Both children shrieked in unison and flailed, fumbling their belay ropes. In a burst of movement, Tharkay hauled at the drapes that surrounded him and sprinted forward a few steps. Iskierka and Temeraire fell in a blur of limbs and rope. She managed to catch herself so that her feet only bumped the taut curtains, but Temeraire fell like a stone, his chest landing squarely across the fabric. Tharkay pushed his weight back so as not to topple over as Temeraire dangled for a moment, then the slow  _ kkkkkkrshkk!  _ of fabric ripping sounded and Temeraire tumbled to the floor in an ungainly heap. In that whole short span, the five other children had rushed in from the hallway and crowded at the cusp of the balcony. Tharkay had not known children were so delightful. He would have laughed more, but it did not seem the right moment given Temeraire’s expression of abject embarrassment. 

 

After everyone was disentangled, Tharkay herded the group back through his bedroom into the sitting room, which suddenly seemed quite cosy when all were assembled, some on chairs, the rest on the floor. Tharkay stood with his hands on his hips and everyone assayed each other a long moment, then he turned abruptly and went to fetch a lidded wicker box from among his luggage in the bedroom. 

“I have sweets. From the nuns at the abbey,” he said, placing the box in the middle ground between the children and himself. This was a strategy he often fell back on when he entered a village where the residents were hostile and he did not speak the language. He opened the clasp and flipped the lid, revealing round cakes studded with nuts and raisins, and small, sweet apples from the orchards at the nunnery. Kulingile immediately scooted forward on his hands and knees and rolled back to his spot with double fistfuls of sweets. The rest of the children held back and Iskierka scoffed aloud. She seemed about to say something more when John, who stood behind her, gently put both hands over her mouth with a small  _ hush _ . Tharkay noticed that one of John’s hands was a prosthetic made of metal and wood, but that was a question for another time. Temeraire sat very straight in his chair, seemingly recovered from his mishap and said quite carefully, “Thank you for your assistance earlier, Mr. Tharkay. You seem a very accomplished man, but you see, although Laurence thinks it, we do not need a tutor. We are all very clever and talented, and have handled our education independently up until this point, so there is really no need for you.” The others nodded sagely in agreement. Iskierka seemed irked that Temeraire had spoken in her stead, but nodded as well.

“Ah, is that so?” said Tharkay. “I hear you have had three governesses in the past six months. Was it you that caused them to leave, perhaps?”

“They were all fools!” said Roland, in a voice that was higher pitched than he remembered. “They could never stop talking about what was  _ proper  _ and had far too many ridiculous ideas about what we should and shouldn’t learn.”

“One of them said that science was the work of the devil!” piped up Sipho. 

“We done her in!” grinned Kulingile, stickily. “It was fun!”

“So it’s science you’re truly interested in?” asked Tharkay, settling cross-legged on the floor to ease the sensation he was being interviewed.

Sipho’s round face lit up in a smile. “Yes, we want to build machines that -“ Demane interrupted with an exclamation in a language that Tharkay could not understand and shoved Sipho’s shoulder. All the children turned to glare at Sipho, then rounded their angry looks back to Tharkay.

“It’s a shame you won’t be needing me as your tutor, then,” he said, settling back on his hands. “For I happen to have a library here with me full of books on the sciences.” The glares melted. “Including on the building of  _ many sorts  _ of machines.” All expressions of anger were gone, transformed into excitement. Tharkay was amused beyond words.

Iskierka remembered herself first. The scowl returned. “Do you now? Where are they then?”

“Right here behind me, in these four boxes.” He patted the one nearest to him. “Though I suppose if you’re sending me away, there’s no use in unpacking them.”

“I don’t believe you, let me see,” retorted Iskierka. The others nodded in unison again.

“Very well,” said Tharkay, keeping his voice neutral. He pulled a chest over to himself and unlocked it with a key from his pocket. The children seemed awed by the fact that the books were under lock and key and Tharkay found he enjoyed making a bit of a show of it. He pulled books out one by one to make a neat pile. “This one here is poetry from Greece about a famous war…”

“ _ Ooh, war… _ ” whispered Demane. 

Tharkay removed a couple more without comment. “Ah, this one is about Chinese technology…” A gasp from Temeraire. “And here we have a natural history of birds.”

“Does it cover how they fly?” asked Roland breathily.

With deliberate movements, he thumbed through the pages. “Why, yes…” he answered, “it does. How interesting.”

“Do you have any books… about how to make machines that fly?” asked Sipho. 

Tharkay smiled slowly, tapped a finger against his chin. “Hmmm… I think I just might.” He rummaged through the books, pulled out two more stacks of them and ran his hand across their spines. The children waited breathlessly. From the third stack he shimmied out a thick volume, shiny and newly-published. “Look, here it is!” All the children leaned forward. “With all the latest research. Including diagrams.” 

Temeraire fell out of his chair.  

As everyone’s attention was captured by Temeraire stumbling up red-faced from the floor, Tharkay began to replace the books in the chest with a resigned air. 

“Wait!” gasped Temeraire, “We’re not sending you away! It is - you see- well, Laurence has to be convinced we are being taught. So you can’t go away! And you must tell Laurence we are making progress with our studies. Though, I mean, that means you can do whatever you like during the day and still get paid as a tutor.”

Temeraire’s blush was all-encompassing at this point. John touched his shoulder softly and continued, “It wouldn’t be a much of deception for we are very good students, just accustomed to studying on our own. This isn’t a reflection on you, it’s simply our own preference. We would be very grateful for the use of your library while you were here however. Some of the books would be a great asset to our learning.”

“Like this one?” said Tharkay, tapping the volume on flying machines against the lip of the chest. 

“Perhaps,” said John, obviously.

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t sit well with me, as an educator,” lied Tharkay with great joy. “These are very difficult books. Especially this one. I imagine there are only a handful of adults who understand more than a tenth of what’s written here. I hear you are very clever children, but still… Merely passing it to you, I would feel derelict in my duties.”

“ _ We are clever!”  _ snarled Iskierka. “ _ More clever than you!” _

_ “ _ Yeah, if only you saw-“ Roland joined, to be interrupted by Temeraire, impassioned. “If only you knew what we have accomplished, you would know we would make far better use of that book than you ever could!”

Tharkay sighed. “But alas, you are all so independent and secretive, I will never know what those accomplishments are. You may bluster all day about how clever you are, but as an educator, I can’t make my assessment until I have seen the proof. So, until then…” He placed the book back in it’s box, closed the lid and reached for his key. 

_ “ _ All right then, _ ”  _ huffed Temeraire. “We’ll show you.”

John gestured frantically at him something that seem to say  _ Are you sure?  _  and Temeraire shot back a hand sign Tenzing didn’t understand.

“Will you promise not to tell Laurence?” asked Roland. Tharkay realized with sudden clarity that Roland was a girl. That was a question for another time as well. 

“If you are working on a project that places you or anyone else in immediate life-threatening danger, or if it is grossly immoral, then yes, I will feel obligated to tell Captain Laurence. Otherwise, I promise that all my communication with him will be negotiated through you.”

The children transmitted a variety of meaningful looks among themselves, before looking to Temeraire for the final word. 

“Then come with us,” he said, and stood with a sweep. “We’ll show you how clever we are.”

 

A coalition of Iskierka, John, and Demane had insisted that Tharkay be blindfolded as he was led to the secret site of their project, so Tharkay spent the next twenty minutes in darkness, being shoved about by too many hands and following a multitude of conflicting whispered commands. He wondered idly where his normal sense of self-preservation had gone. In any other circumstance, he would not agree so lightly to having his eyes covered and being led to an unknown location by strangers. But this pack of children were a force unto themselves, a whirlwind of energy and emotion that Tharkay rather enjoyed getting caught up in, though he had been in their path of influence only an afternoon. If he truly was being taken to see a flying machine in progress, then it was very probable that this project was the cause for all the mysterious shipments of supplies. Imagine - an espionage mission concluded in the space of hours... But what was the motive for all this? What role did Laurence play, with all his complicated ties to English power and the rumors of traitorousness that surrounded him? 

Tharkay could not reconcile the vivacious curiosity of the seven children with any international plot to build weapons in aid of Napoleon. Nor could he make sense of the distant and unhappy captain, who seemed to be a nearly total non-presence in the lives of his children, much less in the theatre of war. Though he had seemed a very competent man, evidence seemed to suggest that he had no inkling of what it was they got up to all day. The workings of this family seemed a puzzle well worth his while.

 

The whispering around him swelled, then Tharkay found himself stopped by two small hands on his stomach and another two on each arm. The creak of a door sounded in front of him and he was hurried in and the door closed behind him. 

“A moment, Sir,” murmured John’s voice behind him and Tharkay felt fingers engaging with the knot. The wooden ones knocked against his skull a couple times, but he seemed to be doing an admirable job until Iskierka bellowed, “BEHOLD!” far too close to his ear and ripped the blindfold away, snagging a few several of Tharkay’s hairs in the process. And- and all Tharkay’s expectations had been quaint compared to what he now saw. 

Wings - a chaos of wings.  _ Dragons. _ The word came unbidden, the remnant of a story his mother once told him of a hero who searches for treasure and explores a cave blindly until he discovers a whole nest of dragons, hungry to devour him. It jolted through his body until he was able to steady himself a moment later and truly take in what lay before him. The wings were canvas, stretched out over wooden and metal frames. Each set was painted with riotous colors and there was a diversity of design that obviously denoted a massive scientific commitment. They came in a multitude of sizes - the four largest arced up over the main work area and were attached to two separate cabin-like contraptions that seemed large enough to hold at least two adults. These were true flying machines - the golden fleece invention sought after by every war office in Europe - nothing at all like the crude children’s contraptions he had imagined.

Temeraire caught Tharkay’s awe and a massive, shining grin spread across his face. “What do you have to say now on our cleverness, Mr. Tharkay?”

“They fly?” gasped Tharkay. It was all he was able to get out.

“We’re far ahead of any silly inventor in France or England or Italy. They fly. Nearly.”

Sipho pitched in, “Our successes have mostly all been gliders actually. The big one can sail from one side of the valley to the other when the breeze is good. The problem is-“ he shied at a sharp look from Iskierka, but forged on, long words rolling out perfectly despite his accent, “the problem that everyone is having is building a mechanism of propulsion that is lightweight but powerful enough to generate lift and go for a long time.” He paused and hopped over to one of the smaller machines with an enthusiasm that made Tharkay recall suddenly that Sipho was only eight. 

“This one here!” The creation was an odd one. It had curved and strutted wings like the dragons of Tharkay’s imagination, but also something that looked like a fish’s fin on the top and there was a propeller at the front. The pilot’s seat was no more than a complicated harness and looked built to fit someone half an adult’s size. “This one is a real flying machine! Look - the pilot has to pedal and move their arms sometimes, but there’s a converter up here that keeps the propellor spinning fast enough all the time. Demane flew six miles in this once.”

Tharkay nodded his general comprehension and Temeraire took it as permission to lay another volley of words into him. “That’s not where we’re stopping though, obviously. Come, look over here!” He led the way across the floor of what Tharkay now realized was a large barn, lit with skylights, to a corner that contained a forge, Turkish-made, if Tharkay was a betting man. 

“It’s a  _ Turkish  _ forge. They make the best forges for detailed work. You see, _no one_ is at the level we are. Sustained flight can only occur when there’s a mechanical engine providing the power. But- but! There is no engine made currently that is anywhere near light enough, or strong enough, or able to burn fuel that is compact enough. So, what do we do? Of course, we are making our own!” Temeraire gestured around, the sweep of his arm taking in two walls of shelves lined with molds of all sizes, ingots of metal, and ready-made parts, organized in labeled bins. Tharkay was awed, and he let is show on his face. From the work table he picked up a trio of delicate tubes no larger than his pinky. They were lighter than anticipated and each was fitted with a perfectly snug valve ringed in rubber. The work table was covered with pieces of this level of workmanship, in a variety of shapes far beyond Tharkay’s level of identification.

“This is incredible,” he said. “The level of technical sophistication exhibited here is, well, if you’ll forgive me, truly unbelievable.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Temeraire, eyebrows wrinkling into the shape of a V. His nostrils flared as Tharkay took a step back to look him in the eye more effectively. 

“I can’t help but wonder if you and your siblings have received outside help in the process of designing and building these machines. Your father perhaps? Or an inventor you correspond with?” 

A silence descended over the assembled children, so murderous it made Tharkay regret the bluntness of his words. 

“I knew he was a fool of a man!” hissed Iskierka to John. “What… should we do with him?” He put a restraining hand on her shoulder reflexively, but seemed to be thinking about it. Tharkay decided this was a challenge he should not have made.

“I apologize, my words were - naive. Perhaps I have known only mediocre children up until this point. I’m afraid I am still becoming accustomed to the level of excellence you all exhibit. Give me time and I will... learn to adjust my thinking. However, there’s one thing I’m amazed by - is it, does your father truly have no knowledge of these operations?”

“This project is all for Laurence," stated Demane, arms crossed, “why would we tell him?”

“We’re going to cheer Laurance up,” added Sipho, “and make it so that England has to take him back.”

“It’s a secret, but also Laurence is still being sad, so he doesn’t pay much attention anyway,” said Roland. “He hardly ever sees us, and Temeraire manages his books, so he doesn’t have any way of knowing what we buy.”

There were several hints in that torrent of words that Tharkay knew he had to pursue further. Previously assumed points in this mission were unraveling and reconfiguring themselves in unexpected ways. “What do you mean, take Laurence back?”

“Laurence was too honorable and the Navy said he was a traitor. They are all asses and know nothing about honor of course,” growled Temeraire, “and now he’s been moping for years because he believes it, Lord knows why! Nothing we've done has cheered him up, so...”

“The British would do anything to have flying machines on their side. It would change the whole dynamic of the war,” said John quietly. 

Temeraire continued, an image of injured fierceness, “We are going to make him a Captain again, a better one. And the Navy will be groveling  to get him back! But he won't go because he's _ours_ and we built a flying machine for him."

“And we will go give Napoleon bombs and hell, just like in the old days... Except from the sky!” said Iskierka, with a glint in her eye that had seemed misplaced to Tharkay, up until this point. The other children hissed their agreement. 

These were not idyllic youngsters, singing in the mountains. The game had changed, yet again in the space of an afternoon, but Tharkay somehow found himself more charmed than ever. 

 


End file.
